1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in painting equipment and more particularly to a paint roller cleaning apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is common practice in the painting industry to clean and reuse paint rollers in order to reduce the overall cost of the painting equipment. The thorough cleaning of the usual paint roller presents certain problems. If the cleaning is not complete, any paint which remains after cleaning may contaminate the paint being used in the next succeeding painting operations and/or it may make the use of the paint roller less efficient. Many devices have been developed to clean paint rollers. Examples of these devices are shown in the Spivey U.S. Pat. No. 3,428,060, issued Feb. 18, 1969, and entitled "Apparatus for Cleaning Paint Rollers;" Parker, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 3,472,251 issued Oct. 14, 1969 and entitled "Centrifugal Water-Action Roller Cleaner"; George U.S. Pat. No. 3,577,280, issued May 4, 1979, and entitled "Faucet Mounted Cleaning Device for Paint Rollers;" Stevens et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,688,785, issued Sept. 5, 1972, and entitled "Paint Roller Cleaner;" Yost U.S. Pat. No. 3,731,697, issued May 8, 1973, and entitled "Paint Roller Cleaning Apparatus;" Barger U.S. Pat. No. 3,755,840, issued Sept. 4, 1973, and entitled "Cleaning, Spin Drying and Fluffing Paint Roller Device;" Krueger U.S. Pat. No. 3,886,960, issued June 3, 1975, and entitled "Paint Roller Cleaning Apparatus;" the Daugherty U.S. Pat. No. 4,061,153, issued Dec. 6, 1977, and entitled "Paint Roller Cleaning Apparatus" and the German Pat. No. 2,138,659, issued in 1973.
The patent to Yost U.S. Pat. No. 3,731,697, includes a nozzle carried by hood to receive cleaning fluid under pressure with a nozzle having an orifice outlet formed to produce a fan shaped spray of fluid directed at the cleaning zone that receives the roller. In this apparatus the roller stays on the handle and the paint roller is held inside the container to be contacted by the spray of water. This system has not been used to my knowledge and appears to be little more effective than holding the paint roller handle by hand and spraying water directly from a garden hose on to it. The axle of the nozzle in Yost is pointed outwardly.
To my knowledge, none of these prior art paint roller cleaners are sold by paint stores or used by painters. Some of these prior art devices direct jets or fine lines of water toward a paint roller to clean it. This form of paint cleaning apparatus has been tried by painters but none to my knowledge have continued using such cleaning apparatus. The apparent reason is that they do not clean the paint roller adequately.